The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is a principal organ of the United Nations, established in 1946 under the UN Charter to maintain international peace and security. It was created at the end of World War II to solve the problem of preventing future global conflicts, a task the League of Nations had failed to achieve. The UNSC is the only UN body that can make decisions legally binding on all member states, as stipulated in Article 25 of the Charter.
The Council is composed of 15 members: five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and ten non-permanent members elected by the UN General Assembly for two-year terms. Decisions on substantive matters require an affirmative vote of nine members, including the concurring votes of all five permanent members, which effectively grants them a veto power. The UNSC's powers, outlined in Chapter VI and Chapter VII of the UN Charter, include investigating disputes, recommending peaceful settlements, imposing economic sanctions, and authorizing military action or peacekeeping missions. Chapter VII specifically allows the Council to determine the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression and recommend or take action.
The UNSC connects directly to the UN General Assembly, which elects the non-permanent members (Article 23) and receives annual reports from the Council (Article 24(3)). The General Assembly can also act on matters of peace and security if the Security Council fails to do so due to a lack of permanent member unanimity, under the "Uniting for Peace" resolution (377 A (V)). The Council's structure has changed once: an amendment to the UN Charter in 1965 increased the total membership from 11 to 15 by adding four non-permanent seats. Calls for further reform, particularly regarding the veto power and the inclusion of new permanent members like India, are ongoing, but the core structure and the veto power of the permanent members have remained the same since the 1965 amendment.